Career Plateau A Review

Accepted Manuscript
Career plateau: A review of 40 years of research
Wei-Ning Yang, Karen Niven, Sheena Johnson
PII: S0001-8791(18)30142-8
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2018.11.005
Reference: YJVBE 3249
To appear in: Journal of Vocational Behavior
Received date: 30 October 2017
Revised date: 12 November 2018
Accepted date: 15 November 2018
Please cite this article as: Wei-Ning Yang, Karen Niven, Sheena Johnson , Career plateau:
A review of 40 years of research. Yjvbe (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2018.11.005
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A REVIEW ON CAREER
PLATEAU
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CAREER PLATEAU: A REVIEW OF 40 YEARS OF RESEARCH
Wei-Ning Yang*
wei-ning.yang@kcl.ac.uk
King’s Business School
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King’s College London
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30 Aldwych, London, WC2B 4BG
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United Kingdom
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Karen Niven
karen.niven@manchester.ac.uk
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Alliance Manchester Business School
University of Manchester
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Booth Street East, Manchester, M13 9SS

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United Kingdom
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Sheena Johnson
sheena.johnson@manchester.ac.uk
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Alliance Manchester Business School
University of Manchester
Booth Street East, Manchester, M13 9SS
United Kingdom
* Corresponding author
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A REVIEW ON CAREER
PLATEAU
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Abstract
A considerable amount of research has been published on career plateau since its first
appearance in the careers literature in the 1970s. There is therefore a need to summarise what
is known about the field in its entirety and what remains unanswered. This paper presents a
review of career plateau research published between 1977 and 2017 and includes 72 empirical
sources. Focusing on hierarchical and job content plateau, the review adopts a social exchange
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perspective in explaining why the two types of plateau are linked with various unfavourable
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work outcomes, what the mechanisms and moderators of these relationships may be, and the
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possible antecedents of career plateau. The 72 sources included in the review revealed that
career plateaued individuals generally report unfavourable affective outcomes (e.g., poorer
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satisfaction and well-being) as well as other undesirable work outcomes (e.g., poorer job
performance and organisational commitment, and enhanced turnover intentions), and that these
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outcomes can be explained by the fact plateaued individuals perceive a lack of support from
their organisation. Furthermore, our review suggests that the effects of career plateau are
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moderated by several key factors, namely, the extent to which both the organisation and
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individual adopt strategies to counteract plateau, and the extent to which individuals care about
being promoted. In terms of antecedents of plateau, proactivity and additional responsibilities

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given by the organisation are negatively related to career plateau. Based on these findings, our
review offers managerial implications and suggestions of future research directions.

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Keywords: Career plateau, hierarchical plateau, job content plateau, review

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A REVIEW ON CAREER PLATEAU
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CAREER PLATEAU: A REVIEW OF 40 YEARS OF RESEARCH
Many would agree that one of the most uncomfortable and frustrating career experiences
is to be unwillingly stuck in a job role for a long period of time. The concept of a career plateau
depicts this experience well. Introduced around 40 years ago, Ference, Stoner, and Warren
(1977) referred to career plateau as a stage where the probability of receiving promotion in the
future is unlikely. Since its introduction, interest in the concept has grown rapidly but
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researchers have yet to take stock of the accumulating evidence to review what is known about
career plateau and what key questions about the topic remain unanswered.
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This paper addresses this omission by presenting a systematic review of the empirical
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research, focusing on career plateau studies published between 1977 and 2017.1 Key studies of
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career plateau were identified using several methods. First, a computerised search was
conducted on the databases PsychINFO, ABI/INFORM and Global ProQuest, using a

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combination of key terms such as career plateau/plateauing, hierarchical plateau, job content
plateau, and professional plateau in the titles or the abstracts. The search was set to include
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only peer-reviewed papers in English. Dissertations published in English were also returned in
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our searches and were included in the review if their content was not published in subsequent
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journal articles that featured in the review. Second, a manual search was performed on journals
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that commonly published articles on career plateau (e.g., Journal of Vocational Behavior,
International Journal of Human Resource Management, and Journal of Career Development).

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Finally, articles were also found through reference lists in key published papers, as well as
publication lists of key authors who have multiple publications on career plateau. These
searches yielded a total of 141 sources, which were then screened and read to see if the content
was in congruence with the purpose of this review. Sources that were irrelevant to the topic (k
= 34), not empirically based (k = 22), or in which career plateau was not the primary focus (k =
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Note that sources published online but not assigned to journal issues were included in this review, meaning that
some sources have publication dates of 2018.
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13) were excluded. The result was 72 empirical sources (see Table 1), comprising 67 journal
articles and 5 dissertations, all of which were quantitative in approach with the exceptions of
two qualitative (i.e., Ference et al., 1977; Smith-Ruig, 2009) and three mixed-method studies
(i.e., Lim & Teo, 1998; McCleese, Eby, Schlarlau, & Hoffman, 2007; Milstein & Bader, 1992).
This review is structured into three major sections. In the first section, we review the
conceptualisation and operationalisation of career plateau and narrow down the review to focus
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on the two most-studied categories of career plateau (namely, hierarchical and job content
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plateau). In the second section, we establish a research framework that is grounded in social
exchange theory (Blau, 1964) and review the literature concerning career plateau guided by this
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framework. Briefly, our framework proposes that becoming plateaued creates an imbalance in
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the exchange of resources between employer and employees, which causes the employee to
perceive a lack of support and in turn experience a loss in obligation towards the organisation,
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resulting in negative work outcomes. It also proposes that perceptions of career plateau may be
reduced or prevented, if either the employer or employee are more active in contributing to their
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relationship. Finally, in the third section, we conclude our review by elaborating on the
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theoretical and managerial implications of our review and offer suggestions for future research.
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Our paper contributes to the careers literatures as it presents the first review in the field to cover
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such a comprehensive summary of the career plateau literature which has amassed over a 40-
year period. This is valuable for taking stock of existing knowledge, identifying important
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research gaps, offering potential directions for future studies, and enabling evidence-based
suggestions for managers.
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Career Plateau: Conceptualisation and Operationalisation
Conceptualisation of career plateau

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Career plateau was initially defined by Ference et al. (1977) as “the point in a career
where the likelihood of additional promotion is very low” (p.602). In the early studies, it was
regarded by scholars as a career status that can be identified using objective criteria, such as
age and job tenure (Veiga, 1981). However, this understanding was reshaped by Chao (1990),
who proposed that a person should be considered to be career plateaued when he or she believes
that the likelihood of future promotion is low, regardless of objective criteria such as
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hierarchical position or length of time spent in a particular role. The subjective definition of
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career plateau has become gradually more accepted and now dominates the literature, with
several studies demonstrating that subjective measures explain more variance in work outcomes
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than objective measures (e.g., Chao, 1990; Chay, Aryee, & Chew, 1995; Tremblay, Roger, &
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Toulouse, 1995).
Different categories of career plateau have also evolved over time (see Table 2), but
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research attention has not been distributed evenly across all of these categories. In fact, from
Table 1, it is evident that research within the field has focused on just two types of plateau:
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hierarchical and job content plateaus. Hierarchical plateau illustrates the same concept as the
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initially proposed career plateau, which refers to a lack of promotion in an organisation. Job
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content plateau refers to a lateral stagnation in which individuals do not receive further job
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responsibilities or they feel that their job is unchallenging (Bardwick, 1986; Feldman & Weitz,
1988; Veiga, 1981). Most of the categories of career plateau are formed on the basis that
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individuals’ careers are bounded within a single organisation, but there are also types of plateau
that go beyond organisational boundaries. For example, Lee (2003) and Hurst, Butts, and Eby
(2011) describe professional plateau and employment plateau, respectively, which concern lack
of opportunities to develop professional and employability skills in one’s job.
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Operationalisation of career plateau
Table 1 shows that early career plateau literature operationalised career plateau as a
dichotomous variable (plateaued vs. non-plateaued), and classed people into one of the two
groups using objective criteria, such as age, job or industry tenure, or number of years without
promotion. For instance, in Veiga’s (1981) study plateaued managers were those over 40 years
old with more than seven years of position tenure. Other criteria used include having remained
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in the same job position for over five years (e.g., Savery, 1989; Slocum Jr., Cron, Hansen, &
Rawlings, 1985; Slocum Jr., Cron, & Yows, 1987), and having 15 years or more of industry
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tenure (e.g., Burke, 1989).
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One limitation of dichotomised classification using objective measures is that there is no
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evidence to conclude that a plateau exists when certain criteria are satisfied. For instance, Veiga
(1981) admitted in his study that there was no solid evidence to prove that managers under the
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age of 40 years were not plateaued; this age was selected as a criterion based on previous career
models. Another limitation is that people’s subjective views about their career are more
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predictive of their work outcomes than their objective career stage; as argued by Chao (1990),
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plateau is likely to be a gradual process rather than an ‘either or’. For these reasons, Milliman’s
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(1992) measuring scales, which capture people’s self-reported perceptions of both hierarchical
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and job content plateau as continuous variables, have been adopted almost universally in later
career plateau studies, as indicated in Table 1.

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The popularity of using subjective measures does not, however, mean that objective
criteria, such as age and tenure, are irrelevant to career plateau. Rather, later research has tended
to conceive these variables as covariates of career plateau, especially those of hierarchical
plateau. This is due to findings from several studies that older and more experienced workers
do typically receive fewer promotion opportunities as they move towards retirement age (e.g.,
Allen, Russell, Poteet, & Dobbins, 1999; Hurst & Eby, 2010; Lemire, Saba, & Gagnon, 1999;
Patterson, Sutton, & Schuttenberg, 1987; Tremblay & Roger, 1993). For this reason, such
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demographic variables are now commonly treated as control variables in career plateau studies.
From the inception of the concept in the late 1970s, multiple types of career plateau have
been proposed and argued to be conceptually distinct. Nevertheless, as noted above, research
within the field has focused heavily, almost to the point of exclusion, on hierarchical and job
content plateaus. In establishing our theoretical framework in the next section, we therefore
focus our discussions specifically on these two most-studied types of plateau.
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A Framework for Examining Career Plateau
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Our theoretical framework is established based on social exchange theory, which
proposes that two parties are influenced by the norms of reciprocity (Gouldner, 1960) and
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interact by exchanging resources. In the work setting, with employees and employers as the two
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parties, employees work hard and offer their services, with the expectation of being reciprocated
with resources such as money, benefits, or status. Employers may offer support, such as
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showing clear signs of valuing employees’ contribution or caring about their well-being, with
the expectation that employees remain committed to the company and perform to the best of
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their ability. Favourable outcomes of social exchange include mutual trust, gratitude, and felt
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obligations (Blau, 1964). However, if deeds from one party are not reciprocated as expected,
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an imbalance occurs and both parties readjust their resources and behaviours to reach a new
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equilibrium. Blau (1964) offers an example of how employees may readjust from imbalance:
“(i)nitially, dissatisfaction with achievements and rewards is likely to be a spur to greater effort,
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but continuing inability to attain important objectives tends to lead to resignation and
embitterment” (p.146). In other words, initial outcomes towards the imbalance seem to be more
affective, including feelings of frustration or dissatisfaction, whereas a lack of reciprocation
over time will lead to more behavioural outcomes.
Social exchange theory has been commonly applied to explain the attitudes and
behaviours of hierarchical and job content plateaued individuals (see Table 1). Being plateaued
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in either manner generates an imbalance in reciprocity. Beginning with hierarchical plateau, it
is well-established that getting promoted is one of the major factors to increase work motivation
(Ettington, 1998). Individuals make contributions at work with the expectation that they will be
reciprocated with rewards such as promotions (Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchison, & Sowa,
1986). Thus, when employees are hierarchically plateaued, they receive a negative message that
the company is not showing support or recognising their efforts, which generates an imbalance
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in reciprocity. As for job content plateau, the challenge-hindrance stressor theory argues that
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employees expect to receive challenging work (e.g., work that involves high complexity and
responsibility, and that requires completion with some time pressure) because, although
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stressful, such work is beneficial and necessary for personal growth (Cavanaugh, Boswell,
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Roehling, & Boudreau, 2000). Linking this expectation with the social exchange theory, Zhang,
Lepine, Buckman, and Feng (2014) proposed that if employees perceive a lack of challenging
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work offered by the organisation (i.e., reaching job content plateau), the norm of reciprocity is
disrupted and employees will feel unfairly treated and unsupported by their companies. Both of
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these types of plateau therefore represent cases in the theory where the employer is not
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reciprocating employees’ efforts, which will lead to short-term affective outcomes such as
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dissatisfaction or poorer well-being. While employees might initially make greater efforts
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towards getting promoted or striving for more challenging work, if they continue to experience
a lack of reciprocity from their employers, they will reduce their effort and ultimately
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demonstrate outcomes such as lower organisational commitment, higher turnover intentions
and poorer job performance.
Given this theoretical foundation, we propose that plateaued employees go through two
serial pathways that explain their work attitudes and behaviours. Perceptions of lack of support
from their organisation serve as an initial pathway to explain the negative affective outcomes
of plateaued employees (e.g., lower job satisfaction or poorer well-being). In turn, perceived
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lack of support generates a loss of obligation from the employee towards the organisation,
which is the second pathway, resulting in a decrease in input to the company, as exemplified by
poorer job performance, lower organisational commitment and higher turnover intentions,
among other possible consequences.
We also propose three key moderators that influence the effects of plateau. The first
moderator is employees’ motivation towards promotion or job challenge. Put simply, the extent
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to which plateaued employees feel unsupported by their organisation when they receive a lack
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of promotion or lack of challenge is likely to depend on how much they value and are motivated
towards these outcomes. This is in line with arguments from Silbert (2005), who first considers
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promotion and growth opportunities to be rewards at work, and contends that the degree to
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which employees perceive organisational support is affected by how much they desire the
rewards that an organisation offers. Applying this to our research framework, plateaued
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employees with greater desires to be promoted or to receive challenge in their roles are likely
to feel more intensely unsupported than those who are indifferent to these rewards. Thus,
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plateaued employees’ motivation towards promotions or work challenge should moderate the
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impact of plateau on their attitudes and behaviours.

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The second moderator is organisational approaches to counteract career plateau. This

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concerns whether the organisation has offered anything to plateaued employees to compensate
for their loss of promotion or job challenge. We take the perspective that by offering alternatives
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to employees (e.g., offering challenges instead of a promotion), the employer at least gives
something in return for their efforts, thereby following the norm of reciprocity (Gouldner,
1960). This view is supported by the idea of generalised reciprocity, which suggest that
members in groups accept reciprocation from other sources (Das & Teng, 2002; Sahlins, 1965).
Given this, we expect that organisational approaches to counteracting plateau should buffer the
relationship between perceived career plateau and lack of organisational support, and ultimately
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reduce the negative effects of plateau.
The final moderator stems from Bardwick’s (1986) view that individuals, like
organisations, may be in a position to enact approaches to counteract plateau. From a social
exchange perspective, we propose that such approaches are likely to be used after an individual
has experienced little or no support from the organisation. As discussed previously, employees
expect to be rewarded with promotions or to receive challenging assignments throughout their
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career. When plateaued, they would hold the organisation to be responsible for this result
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(Bardwick, 1986) and expect actions to be taken by the organisation. However, if their employer
is not enacting strategies to counteract plateau, this lack of reciprocity from the employer may
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be a stressor that leads to poorer well-being (Schaufeli, 2006), and would leave individuals to
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adopt approaches to counteract career plateau themselves (e.g., looking for and taking other
assignments or adopt coping strategies). Thus, individual approaches to manage career plateau
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could play a moderating role, by buffering the negative relationship between perceived lack of
organisational support and work outcomes.

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In addition to the mediators and moderators, social exchange theory also helps to identify
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likely antecedents of career plateau. The first such antecedent is employees’ proactive
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tendencies and behaviours. Evidence suggests that individuals with proactive personalities put
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more into their exchange relationships and as a result draw more out of them, leading to lesser
chance of reaching a stage of career plateau. With regards to input into the social exchange
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relationship, proactive people are quicker in identifying opportunities to improve things at work
and to take actions to achieve their goals, rather than passively waiting for instructions on
solving issues (Crant, 2000). They also seek feedback or information from supervisors on how
to best resolve problems, leading to better performance (Fuller & Marler, 2009; Li, Liang, &
Crant, 2010). As a consequence, employers tend to reciprocate these signs of dedication with
rewards such as granting promotions or assigning more challenging work; hence proactive
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personality is positively related to career success, both subjectively (i.e., career satisfaction or
job satisfaction) and objectively (i.e., promotion and salary) (e.g., Fuller & Marler, 2009; Li et
al., 2010; Ng, Eby, Sorensen, & Feldman, 2005; Seibert, Crant, & Krainer, 1999). As such, it
seems probable that individuals with proactive tendencies and behaviours will be less likely to
reach a plateaued status.
The second such antecedent is additional responsibilities from the organisation, such as
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inviting employees to take on supervisory or mentoring roles. While the gesture is not as
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straightforward as offering rewards like promotions, such responsibilities are indicative of a
contribution to the exchange relationship; they represent the organisation recognising the
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worker’s skills and abilities and therefore may be perceived as a reciprocation of input.
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Mentoring, for instance, entails offering experience, support and guidance to a junior employee
(Kram, 1985). These additional responsibilities may alleviate the perception of both forms of
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plateau. They may reduce job content plateau because they add variety to work and may pose
new challenges to overcome. They might also reduce hierarchical plateau because they create
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valuable experiences which could eventually lead to promotions (e.g., Allen, Lentz, & Day,
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2006; Bozionelos, 2004).

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This theoretical framework is illustrated in Figure 1. In the following sub-sections,

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evidence for the impact of career plateau on the affective and other work outcomes is reviewed,
followed by the literature concerning the mechanisms and moderators of the effects of plateau
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and its antecedents.
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Effects of career plateau on affective outcomes
Job satisfaction. A large proportion of empirical research has focused on the impact of
plateau on job satisfaction. In early studies, where hierarchical plateau was measured
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objectively, findings about the plateau-satisfaction relationship were inconsistent. For example,
Burke (1989), Orpen (1986) and Choy and Savery (1998) all reported that plateaued workers
were less satisfied with their job than non-plateaued colleagues, yet several other researchers
reported no differences in satisfaction between plateaued and non-plateaued workers (e.g.,
Evans & Gilbert, 1984; Slocum Jr. et al., 1985). The possible misclassification of participants
into plateaued or non-plateaued groups, owing to the objective operationalisation of career
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plateau (Chao, 1990), may account for these inconsistencies, however, as later studies using
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subjective hierarchical plateau have consistently reported negative associations between
hierarchical plateau and job satisfaction (e.g., Chao, 1990; Chay et al., 1995; Ettington, 1998;
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Lentz & Allen, 2009; Tremblay et al., 1995). Likewise, there is consistent evidence that job
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content plateau is negatively related to job satisfaction (e.g., McCleese & Eby, 2006;
Nachbagauer & Riedl, 2002; Salami, 2010).

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Well-being. Empirical research has generally supported a link between hierarchical
plateau and poor well-being. For instance, Burke (1989) and Allen, Poteet, and Russell (1998)
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compared well-being levels of plateaued and non-plateaued workers and found hierarchical
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plateaued managers had higher stress levels than the non-plateaued. Subsequent studies using
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subjectively measured hierarchical plateau also reported links with job stress (e.g., Davenport,
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1993; Godshalk, 1997; Joseph, 1992) and other indicators of poor well-being (e.g., depression,
Lemire, Saba, & Gagnon, 1999; psychological distress, Hurst, Kungu, & Flott, 2012; Lapalme,
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Tremblay & Simard, 2009; and emotional exhaustion, Wang, Hu, Hurst, & Yang, 2014). Only
one study, by Burke and Mikkelsen (2006), found no significant difference between plateaued
and non-plateaued police officers in terms of anxiety or depression. In explaining the reasons
for this null-effect, the authors suggested that perhaps the police officers had learned quickly to
adapt to and to cope with their plateaued career status without letting it have an impact on their
well-being. Regarding job content plateau and well-being, however, the results are more mixed.
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McCleese et al. (2007) reported that both hierarchical and content plateaued employees had
higher stress and depression levels than general US population norms and Lapalme et al. (2009)
showed a significant negative association between job content plateau and well-being.
However, Hurst et al. (2012) and Wang et al. (2014) have both reported null effects of job
content plateau on stress.
Effects of career plateau on other work outcomes
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Organisational commitment. The findings about career plateau’s influence on
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organisational commitment are consistently negative. One of the first studies to investigate
career plateau and organisational commitment was a longitudinal study conducted at two waves
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across three years by Stout, Slocum Jr, and Cron (1988), who compared three groups of people,
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classified using objective criteria according to whether or not they were hierarchically plateaued
in both waves of the study, in the second wave only, or in neither of the waves of the study.
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Results showed that both of plateaued groups displayed a significant decrease in organisational
commitment over the study period.

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Milliman (1992), Chay et al. (1995) and Lemire et al. (1999) have all examined the
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relationship between subjective hierarchical plateau and organisational commitment among

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groups of managers and employees with supervisory responsibilities, and similarly found a
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negative association between the two variables. Several other studies revealed that this negative
relationship is also applicable to hierarchically plateaued and job content plateaued employees.
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For instance, McCleese and Eby (2006), Jung and Tak (2008), Lapalme et al. (2009), Lentz and
Allen (2009), and Drucker-Godard, Fouque, Gollety, and Le Flanchec (2015) all observed
negative effects of either hierarchical or job content plateau on employees’ organisational
commitment. Together the evidence confirms that reaching a career plateau is damaging to
employees’ dedication to their companies.
Turnover intentions. There is also relatively strong evidence that individuals who
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perceive career plateau have a greater intention to leave their organisations. Early studies using
objective criteria have reported that hierarchically plateaued managers and workers have higher
intention to leave their organisation than their non-plateaued colleagues (e.g., Burke, 1989;
Orpen, 1983). In a couple of studies, however, mixed effects on turnover intentions have been
found when scholars have used different operationalisations of plateau. Tremblay and Roger
(2004), for example, measured hierarchical plateau using both objective and subjective
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measures among managers, and the two relationships with intention to quit were in opposite
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directions. Objective hierarchical plateau, represented by job tenure over five years, was
negatively associated with intention to quit, whereas subjective hierarchical plateau was
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significantly positively related. Heilmann, Holt, and Rilovick (2008) also used objective and
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subjective methods to measure plateau and examine the turnover intention of servicemen. Their
objective measure (based on tenure and military rank) was unrelated to turnover intentions,
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while subjective plateau (measuring by combining indicators of both hierarchical and job
content plateau) was positively related to turnover intentions.

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Other research that has measured career plateau subjectively has reported consistent
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findings on the relationships between career plateau and turnover intentions. For instance,
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Tremblay et al. (1995) found that the more hierarchically plateaued the employee, the higher
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their turnover intentions. Similar findings were reported in studies by Lemire et al. (1999),
Foster, Lonial, and Shastri (2011), Xie, Lu, and Zhou (2015), and Xie, Xin, and Bai (2016).
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Additionally, Lentz and Allen (2009), Wang et al. (2014) and Drucker-Godard et al. (2015) all
reported a positive relationship between both forms of plateaus and turnover intention.
Job performance. Finally, in terms of the influence of career plateau on job performance,
empirical research on this outcome is more complex and findings are mixed. Ference et al.
(1977) first theorised in their work that plateau need not necessarily lead to poor job
performance. Instead, they contrasted two types of hierarchically plateaued people: those who
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have poor performance ('deadwood'); and those who have maintained good performance ('solid
citizens'). Near’s (1985) study concurs with this perspective. Using secondary interview data,
she found no performance difference between plateaued and non-plateaued managers. While
there are limitations with Near’s findings (e.g., the lack of primary data and possible mis-
categorisation of plateaued and non-plateaued employees), she is not the only one to report a
lack of effects of plateau on performance. For example, Nachbagauer and Riedl (2002) similarly
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reported a null relationship between hierarchical plateau (measured both objectively and
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subjectively) and job content plateau with job performance. However, their indicator of job
performance included various components (e.g., weekly work hours, self-assessed performance
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and recent change in performance level) and may have had drawbacks (e.g., hours worked does
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not necessarily indicate efficiency).
A different picture can be gleaned when consulting research that focuses on objective
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measures of performance. In Stout et al.’s (1988) longitudinal study on salespeople, both plateau
and performance were measured objectively. Their results showed that non-plateaued
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salespeople had increasingly better performance (presented by annual sales volume) during the
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three year study period, whereas those who became plateaued throughout the period did not
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report any change (for better or worse) in job performance, thus suggesting a decline relative
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to their non-plateaued counterparts. Gerpott and Domsch (1987) examined performance of
R&D professionals, comparing hierarchically plateaued versus non-plateaued workers.

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Although there was no difference in self-assessed job performance, plateaued individuals had
lower objective productivity (number of publications) than their non-plateaued peers. Research
using other-reports of performance likewise suggests that plateau is associated with poorer
performance. For example, Milliman (1992) and Ettington (1997, 1998) reported that
subjectively-measured hierarchical plateau was negatively associated with manager’s
performance ratings. Similarly, Orpen (1986) found no between-group differences in self-

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assessed job performance, but that hierarchically plateaued managers had lower supervisor-
rated job performance than non-plateaued managers.
Moreover, some studies that use subjective measures of both career plateau and job
performance show a negative relationship between the constructs. Chay et al. (1995) found that
hierarchical plateau was negatively related with extra-role behaviour (i.e., looking for other
responsibilities), although not with in-role behaviour (i.e., managing only assigned tasks).
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Lemire et al. (1999) found that hierarchical plateau was negatively associated with perceived
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work performance, and Allen et al. (1998) found that job content plateau managers had lower
self-assessed job performance than their non-plateaued colleagues. Hurst et al. (2012) and
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Hurst, Baranik, and Clark (2017) also observed negative relationships between job content
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plateau and organisational citizenship behaviour as a proxy indicator of performance.
Evidence about the influence of career plateau on job performance therefore seems to be
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mixed, most likely due to different approaches to operationalise both plateau and performance.
We believe that the most rigorous study design would measure career plateau subjectively (as
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previously outlined) and job performance objectively (e.g., due to self-representation and
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attributional biases; Parker & Kulik, 1995). The studies that have adopted this rigorous design
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(e.g., Ettington, 1997; Ettington, 1998; Milliman, 1992) all indicated that hierarchical plateau
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negatively affects performance, which offers support for our theoretical framework. Notably,
however, there are no studies, to our knowledge, examining the effects of job content plateau
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on objective performance. Given this, there is insufficient evidence to fully evaluate the impact
of job content plateau on job performance.
To summarise, while early research adopting objective measures of hierarchical plateau
produced some inconsistent findings, these inconsistencies could potentially be attributed to
measurement limitations. In support of this proposition, more recent research, which has
adopted perceptual, continuous measures, has produced relatively consistent results about the
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detriments associated with becoming hierarchically plateaued, across the five work outcomes
in our theoretical framework. On the whole, the evidence regarding job content plateau is also
suggestive of negative outcomes, although the evidence is mixed regarding well-being and
lacking altogether regarding performance. Thus, it is possible that not having any promotion
(or being rejected for a promotion) is more damaging to one's well-being and performance than
remaining with the same work content, although more research on the consequences of job
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content plateau is needed before such a conclusion could be reached.
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Mechanisms of the effects of career plateau
Perceived lack of support from the organisation. As explained in our theoretical
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framework, it is expected that two pathways are responsible for the negative effects of career
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plateau. The first pathway is a perceived lack of support from the organisation. Plateaued
individuals are expected to feel neglected by their organisations and supervisors, and this
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perceived lack of support ought to affect their performance and attitudes negatively (Bardwick,
1986). We found three studies that offer support for this proposition. Firstly, Gerpott and
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Domsch (1987) reported evidence that a lack of supervisor and organisational support mediated
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the negative relationship between hierarchical plateau and outcomes including job performance
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and satisfaction. Secondly, Armstrong-Stassen and Ursel (2009) reported evidence that
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organisational support mediated the relationship between both hierarchical and job content
plateau with intention to remain in the organisation (which indicates a lack of turnover
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intention), among a sample of older workers. Finally, Lapalme et al. (2009) observed that
perceived organisational support mediated effects on commitment to the organisation and
psychological distress among hospital employees, although this mediation was only found for
hierarchical and not job content plateau. Together, these results provide relatively consistent
evidence suggesting that perceptions of a lack of support from their organisations and
supervisors may help to explain why plateaued workers develop poorer work outcomes; not
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only negative affective outcomes, but also other work outcomes such as poorer performance
and greater turnover intentions.
Perceived loss of obligation towards organisation. The second pathway proposed in
our theoretical framework is plateaued individuals’ perceived loss of obligation towards
organisation. We theorised that the lack of support perceived from the organisation by plateaued
individuals would over time translate into reduced feelings of obligation towards the
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organisation and that this would ultimately explain longer-term outcomes of plateau, such as
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lower organisational commitment, poorer performance, and higher turnover intentions.
However, our review of the empirical evidence suggested that to date no studies have
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specifically examined plateaued employees’ perceived loss of obligations, whether as a
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standalone outcome or as a pathway of the effects of plateau.
Job satisfaction. Although not included in our a priori theoretical framework, our review
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revealed an additional mechanistic pathway that has received attention from multiple research
teams: the level of satisfaction with one’s job or career. While we have conceptualised
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satisfaction as an outcome of plateau, some researchers have extended this position, arguing
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that the effects of plateau on satisfaction may help to explain why plateau goes on to have
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negative consequences for other outcomes. Such claims stem from the evidence that satisfaction
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is highly predictive of job performance and other attitudinal variables such as turnover
intentions (Judge, Thoresen, Bono, & Patton, 2001; Tett & Meyer, 1993). For example,
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Armstrong-Stassen and Ursel (2009) and Xie et al. (2016) both found that satisfaction was a
mediator of the effects of job content, but not hierarchical plateau, on intention to remain in the
organisation. More recently, Hurst et al. (2017) demonstrated that job satisfaction mediated the
relationship between job content plateau and organisational citizenship behaviour (as a form of
job performance) among hospital workers. Job satisfaction may therefore be considered a more
proximal outcome of career plateau that helps to explain why plateaued workers (at least those
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who are job content plateaued) may perform more poorly or choose to leave their organisation.
To summarise, while we found much evidence for perceived lack of support from the
organisation as a pathway of the effects of career plateau, this was not the case for perceived
loss of obligation towards the organisation. Unexpectedly, we found several studies that suggest
employee satisfaction as an additional pathway to explain long-term work outcomes.
Moderators of the effects of career plateau
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Motivation towards promotion or job challenge. The first moderator we expected to
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vary the effects of career plateau was the individual’s motivation towards promotion or job
challenge. Our review of the literature suggested some support for the premise that a person’s
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desire towards receiving promotions would influence the extent to which they experienced
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negative outcomes when reaching hierarchical plateau. For instance, both Milliman (1992) and
Davenport (1993) found evidence that greater promotion aspiration strengthened the negative
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effects of hierarchical plateau on outcomes such as organisational commitment, turnover
intentions, and job satisfaction. Similarly, Palmero, Roger, and Tremblay (2001) found that part-
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time workers who reported career progression to be more important had stronger negative
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associations between hierarchical plateau and job satisfaction than those who reported this to
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be less important. In addition to affecting hierarchical plateau, Davenport (1993) also reported
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promotion aspiration to exacerbate the negative effects of job content plateau on outcomes
including stress, turnover intentions and satisfaction. Given the ample amount of research
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evidence, it is reasonable to conclude that personal desires toward promotion strengthen the
negative outcomes of plateau. This is presumably because such desires and motivations enhance
the feeling of lack of support from the organisation that plateaued employees experience,
although this mechanistic explanation has not yet been tested. By contrast, no study was found
to examine whether personal desire toward job challenge also has this moderating effect.
Organisational approaches to counteract career plateau. We theorised that if

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companies offer approaches to compensate plateaued employees (e.g., offering something else
valued), those employees will feel more supported by their companies and therefore be less
negatively affected by imbalanced reciprocity in the experience of career plateau. Our review
found this suggestion to be well-supported, with three main kinds of organisational approaches
identified. The first type of approach is offering job challenge to hierarchically plateaued
employees. Two studies have directly measured job challenge as a moderator, both showing the
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expected buffering effects (on performance, Chay et al., 1995; and on job satisfaction,
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Ettington, 1998). Two further studies have used job content plateau as a moderator of the effects
of hierarchical plateau, drawing from the similar assumption that if people have low content
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plateau (and therefore feel they receive sufficient challenge in their role), they will be less
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negatively affected by a lack of promotion opportunity, both finding the expected moderation
effect (e.g., Milliman, 1992; Xie et al., 2015).

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The second kind of organisational approach to counteract plateau is mentoring. Elsass
and Ralston (1989) theorised that mentoring may serve as a way of adding variety into one’s
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role, and therefore could be an alternative to compensate for lack of promotion or challenge.
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Both Lentz and Allen (2009) and Salami (2010) reported mentoring experience as a significant
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buffer in the relationship between both hierarchical and job content plateau with job satisfaction
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and organisational commitment. The final type of approach we found is the use of social
support. To compensate for the lack of promotion or challenge, companies may show other
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visible signs that they care about employees’ needs. Ettington (1998) reported that supervisory
support reduced the negative effects of hierarchical plateau on job performance. Moreover, Jung
and Tak (2008) found that supervisor support moderated the effects of hierarchical plateau on
job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Milliman (1992) further reported that
supervisor career discussions (an indicator of supportive behaviour) buffered negative
relationships between hierarchical plateau and organisational commitment and satisfaction. By

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contrast, Joseph (1992) reported a null moderating effect on social support between both
plateaus and work outcomes. On the whole then, there is good evidence to conclude social
support as an effective approach for hierarchical plateaued employees, although there is a lack
of evidence in relation to job content plateaued employees.
Individual approaches to counteract career plateau. In addition to organisational
strategies, we proposed individuals could also adopt approaches to counteract plateau. A few
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studies have supported this and suggested that – via the use of coping strategies – individuals
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might be able to compensate for plateau, and thus alleviate its negative effects. We identified
five studies that examined links between plateau and coping. While two of these examined the
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links in a more descriptive fashion (e.g., McCleese et al., 2007; Rotondo, 1999), three studies
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explicitly tested moderation of coping strategies on the relationship between plateau and its
outcomes. Joseph (1992) examined whether the use of physical or recreational coping strategies
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buffered the plateau-outcome relationship, but neither was supported. In contrast, Rotondo and
Perrewe (2000) found that hierarchically plateaued individuals who adopted adaptive coping
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strategies (e.g., taking other assignments) had higher satisfaction, commitment, and
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performance compared with those who adopted maladaptive strategies (e.g., blaming the
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organisation for the lack of promotions, withdrawing from the job). Hurst et al. (2012) further
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found that engaging in non-work activities and job involvement were effective coping strategies
for reducing hierarchical plateau stress. The results confirm that it is not only the organisation
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that can enact approaches to counteract career plateau, but also the plateaued individual.
To summarise, our proposed moderators have been mainly supported by empirical
research, although the evidence so far mostly concerns the moderation of effects of hierarchical
plateau. Whereas having greater desires towards promotion leads to more intense negative
outcomes for plateaued employees, organisations and individuals appear to be able to
counteract the negative effects of plateau through the use of effective strategies. Whether the
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strategies that buffer the effects of hierarchical plateau apply equally to job content plateau,
however, is a question that remains largely unanswered.
Antecedents of Career Plateau
Proactive tendencies and behaviours. Several studies have examined whether
individuals’ proactivity could prevent them from reaching a plateau in the first place. Beginning
with proactive tendencies, several individual differences that would be expected to enhance
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proactive behaviour have been negatively associated with career plateau. For example, both
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Tremblay and Roger (1993) and Lemire et al. (1999) reported internal locus of control to be
negatively associated with hierarchical plateau, suggesting that people who believe they have
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control over their fate and work achievements are less likely to feel hierarchically plateaued.
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Furthermore, Tremblay and Roger (1993) reported individuals’ promotion aspiration to be
negatively associated with hierarchical plateau. Finally, Allen et al. (1999) found that people
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with higher motivation to learn have lower perceptions of hierarchical plateau. Together the
findings mostly support that people with a more proactive personality (e.g., believing that they
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have control over work outcomes, being active in learning, and aspiring towards rewards such
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as promotion) are less likely to reach hierarchical plateau.

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In terms of proactive behaviours, there is support that those who are more engaged in
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career-related activities or more involved at work are less likely to perceive career plateau. For
example, Allen et al. (1999) found career planning and job involvement to be negatively related
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with both hierarchical and job content plateau, and career exploration to be negatively
associated with hierarchical plateau. Lemire et al. (1999) further found work perseverance to
be negatively related to hierarchal plateau. Additionally, recent studies by Jiang (2016) and
Jiang, Hu, and Wang (2018) showed career adaptability to be negatively associated with job
content plateau, suggesting that individuals who consciously adjust themselves to the work
conditions through self-regulation are less likely to perceive stagnation in job challenge.
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Additional responsibilities from the organisation. Significant associations have been
found between supervision responsibilities and both types of plateau. Tremblay and Roger
(1993), for instance, found a negative relationship between supervisory responsibility and
hierarchical plateau. Lemire et al. (1999) further found that this relationship strengthened with
increasing number of supervisees. Two studies have also measured mentoring responsibilities
as antecedents of plateau. Foster et al. (2011) found that mentoring can reduce perceptions of
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both hierarchical and content plateau among accountants, and Wang et al. (2014) found the
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same among bank employees.
In summary, the two proposed antecedents have found support in existing literature.
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Namely, antecedents that (negatively) influence perceptions of both plateaus include proactive
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tendencies and behaviours and additional responsibilities from the organisation, such as
assigning supervisory or mentoring roles.

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Discussion
Theoretical implications
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This review offers several important theoretical contributions. First, it offers a theoretical
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framework for understanding why career plateau has negative work-related outcomes. By
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drawing on social exchange theory, we explain that career plateau ought to impair work
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outcomes because: (a) it should reduce workers’ perceptions of support from the organisation;
and (b) in turn it should reduce their sense of obligation to the organisation. Our review provide
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support for the former of these pathways and additionally highlights job satisfaction as a
proximate mechanism explaining why career plateau translates into longer-term detriments for
performance and job-related attitudes. While the results concerning job satisfaction was not
theorised a priori, they are actually in line with Blau’s (1964) original explanation of how
employees respond to imbalances in exchange relationships. He suggested that dissatisfaction
is an initial reaction to an imbalance, followed by more intense outcomes such as turnover and
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poorer performance if employees continually fail to reach their objectives. Given this, plateaued
individuals may first experience lower job satisfaction, and if their efforts to get out of the
stagnation are repeatedly met with rejection of promotion or challenging tasks, their
dissatisfaction is likely to increase and will eventually lead to other long-term work outcomes
like enhanced turnover intentions, poorer organisational commitment and job performance.
Second, our review contributes to the career plateau literature by identifying key
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moderators that provide insight into when career plateau is most likely to lead to negative
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outcomes. Again, drawing from the social exchange perspective and the norm of reciprocity,
we expected that individuals’ motivation towards promotion and job challenge would influence
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the extent to which hierarchical and job content plateau, respectively, would make employees
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feel unsupported and uncared for by their organisation and would thereby affect the
consequences of plateau. Our review suggested that the desire for promotion was highly
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relevant in this regard, but there was no evidence concerning how much employees are
motivated towards or value job challenge. We further theorised that both organisations and the
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individual might adopt approaches to counteract plateau. Specifically, organisations may offer
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alternative rewards, which would prevent employees from feeling unsupported in the case that
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they perceived themselves to be plateaued. If plateaued individuals feel uncared for by their
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organisation, prudent use of adaptive coping strategies might also enable them to prevent the
sense of being unsupported from translating into negative outcomes. Here, our review
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supported these views, which not only offered evidence for the tacit nature of the social
exchange, but also revealed that both organisations and plateaued individuals themselves can
do something to counteract the negative effects of career plateau.
Third, our review contributes by shedding light on some of the antecedents of career
plateau. There is generally a lack of theory in speculating what would make workers more or
less susceptible to become plateaued and our review identifies two forms of antecedents from
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a social exchange perspective, which are individuals’ proactive tendencies and behaviours and
additional responsibilities given by the organisation. Identifying these antecedents offers an
encouraging message that perceptions of plateau could be effectively prevented if either the
employee or the employer takes the initiative to offer more resources to the other in their
relationship.
Finally, our review contributes by highlighting some of the possible differences between
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core types of career plateau. While only two types of plateau have been studied intensely, as
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this review notes, the findings here suggest that there may be differences in terms of the effects
that these types of plateau have (e.g., hierarchical plateau has clearer, more negative effects on
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individuals’ well-being and job performance), as well as the mechanisms and moderators of
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those effects, and their antecedents. It remains to be determined whether some of the differences
that emerged from the review are a product of differences in the focus of studies in this area
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(e.g., there have been more studies of hierarchical plateau, so it is possible that its apparently
stronger effects on some outcomes are simply due to a larger body of evidence) or whether there
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are fundamental differences in how these types of plateau function that need to be considered
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in greater depth in future theorising in this area.

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Practical implications
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This review offers substantive managerial implications (see Table 3). First, the agreement
that career plateau is a perceptual and continuous variable and that subjective measurement
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explains more variance on work outcomes than objective ones is encouraging for companies.
This means that organisations can take positive actions in managing plateaued employees
through changing their perceptions and, ultimately, their negative job attitudes.
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Second, the consistent evidence showing that both hierarchical and job content plateau
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are detrimental to employee job attitudes, and that hierarchical plateau is a stressful experience,
highlight the importance of finding solutions to overcome plateau. The evidence of significant
moderators reviewed in this paper therefore offers guidelines on how companies can achieve
solutions to the issue of career plateau. One such solution draws from the findings that
promotion aspiration worsens the plateau-outcome relationship; on this basis, companies can
think about redefining rewards. Promotion and money need not be the only rewards
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organisations can offer. Rather, “(a)nything can become a reward if it's something that people
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compete for, earn, and value” (Bardwick, 1986, p. 157). Another possible solution concerns the
use of organisational approaches to counteract plateau, in the form of offering alternative work
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that is more challenging or showing social support. Practically, organisations can encourage
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supervisors to show visible support for plateaued employees, and introduce job rotation, job
enrichment, or job enlargement in managing hierarchical plateau (Chay et al., 1995; Ettington,
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1998). Organisations can also offer support by showing respect and appreciation to plateaued
individuals by informing them of the necessity and importance of their contribution (Bardwick,
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1986). Another way of adding challenge and variety into the job is mentoring, which has been
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supported as an approach to counteract plateau as well as an antecedent (i.e., additional

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responsibility from the organisation) of both hierarchical and job content plateau.
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Third, the evidence that individuals themselves also counteract plateau through their use
of coping strategies suggests that organisations can take active steps in preventing plateaued
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employees from using negative coping responses (e.g., blaming the employer for the lack of
opportunities) and in promoting positive coping activities (e.g., learning new skills, taking on
other assignments).
Recommended future directions
We now turn our focus to recommended future directions for career plateau research,
derived from our review (see Table 3). Beginning with the categorisation and operationalisation
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of career plateau, the majority of studies on career plateau to date are either focused on
hierarchical or job content plateau. Although this focus enhances our understanding of their
impact, there are concerns as to whether these types of plateau fully represent the contemporary
career, as they are clearly based on the traditional concept that careers are bounded within an
organisation. As concepts like the boundaryless career (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996) and protean
career (Hall, 1996) have become more relevant to the working environment, future studies
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should focus more on investigating other forms of plateau that draw from these career concepts.
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These include professional plateau (Lee, 2003), and its subcategories such as employment and
occupational plateau (Hurst et al., 2011), which by definition go beyond organisational
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boundaries to consider whether jobs provide individuals with skills that allow them to increase
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their external employability. The first step would be to develop new measures for these types
of plateaus, so that empirical evidence of their distinctiveness could be confirmed, followed by

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extended research on the antecedents, consequences, mediators, and moderators of these types
of plateau.
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Reviewing the consequences of career plateau indicates two further important research
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gaps around job performance. First, there is a clear need for further research on the performance
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effects of job content plateau. Some researchers have debated whether job content plateau may
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have a worse impact on individuals than hierarchical plateau (Allen et al., 1998; Bardwick,
1986; McCleese & Eby, 2006), yet our review suggested that not only might this not be the
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case, but that no studies examined the performance effects of job content plateau using objective
measures, which are likely to be more reliable indicators of employees’ performance than self-
ratings. More rigorous research is therefore needed to assess the effect of content plateau on
individuals’ performance. Second, studies of job performance in the reviewed evidence have
focused primarily on individuals’ behaviour in fulfilling their required responsibilities under a
stable working environment. However, given the current, fast-changing work climate,
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employees are expected to extend their performance beyond their assigned duties and
demonstrate "an active style of work behaviour" (Ghitulescu, 2013, p. 207). This behaviour
includes being capable of adapting and responding to change appropriately, as well as being
proactive to initiate change in certain situations (Griffin, Parker, & Mason, 2010). In spite of
this important trend, very few studies have investigated career plateaued employees’ job
performance in relation to active work behaviour. To our knowledge, only Hurst et al. (2012)
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and Hurst et al. (2017) have tapped into this by examining the effect of career plateau on
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organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB). Both studies found that job content plateau is
negatively associated with OCB, suggesting the importance of investigating plateaued
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individuals’ performance in greater breadth.
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We found no studies that examined employees’ loss of obligation towards their
organisation as a pathway to explain the work outcomes of career plateau, despite theoretical
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reasons to believe that this might be an important factor to consider. A continued failure of the
organisation to meet an employee’s needs for promotion or job challenge might result in the
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employee feeling less obligation towards the organisation due to this change in the social
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exchange relationship. Decrease in felt obligation in turn reduces organisation commitment and
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job performance (Eisenberger, Armeli, Rexwinkel, Lynch, & Rhoades, 2001). Given this, we
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recommend future studies address this research gap by examining employees’ felt obligations
towards the organisation as a mediator. Studies examining both of the pathways proposed in
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our framework and testing these as serial mechanisms would be particularly valuable.
Another variable that we expected to be theoretically relevant to career plateau but that
has not been tested empirically in any of the studies is individuals’ desire towards work
challenge. Studies clearly suggest that the extent to which individuals desire promotion affects
the consequences of becoming hierarchically plateaued, presumably because it affects the
degree to which individuals feel unsupported by their organisation in a situation of plateau.

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Likewise, it seems plausible that individuals who strongly desire job challenge ought to be more
negatively affected if they perceive themselves to be job content plateaued. This issue is of
particular importance given the increased research on the Kaleidoscope Careers Model
(Mainiero & Sullivan, 2005, 2006), which propose the need for challenge as one of the key
parameters that guides individuals’ career decision-making in the contemporary career.
Therefore, future studies should therefore investigate this potential moderator further. Our
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review further revealed that individuals’ use of coping strategies can overcome the negative
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effects of hierarchical plateau. Future research should examine whether similar types of coping
can also buffer the consequences of becoming content plateaued.
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Even for moderator variables that have been relatively consistently supported in our
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review, it is noteworthy that there is a paucity of studies testing more complex moderated-
mediation models of the type featured in our theoretical framework (see Xie et al., 2015 and
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Xie et al., 2016, for exceptions). Future research should therefore seek to integrate tests of
moderators with measures of mechanisms in order to ascertain why the effects of career plateau
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vary according to certain individual characteristics or features of the work environment and if
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the reasons for such variations conform to our theoretical framework. The case of organisational
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and individual approaches to counteract plateau is particularly interesting, as theoretically we

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would expect each of these moderators to affect a different stage of the mediation process
between plateau and its outcomes. It will therefore be valuable for future studies to adopt
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longitudinal designs tracking participants over time to establish how the effects of plateau
unfold and the stages at which different moderators become salient.
Finally, our review of the antecedents of career plateau suggests that future studies should
take into account mediators and moderators of antecedent-plateau relationships to understand
more about when and why particular conditions make career plateau more likely to occur.
Finding factors that influence the antecedent-plateau relationship is beginning to receive some
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attention, as evidenced in Wang et al.’s (2014), Jiang’s (2016) and Jiang et al.’s (2018) studies,
but more such research is encouraged in the future.
Conclusion
This systematic review captures 40 years of research on career plateau and reflects what
has been investigated in the field and where further investigation is needed. Based on social
exchange theory, we offered a theoretical framework to explain how career plateau (with the
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focus on hierarchical and job content plateaus) relates to work outcomes such as job
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satisfaction, well-being, organisational commitment, turnover intentions and job performance.
Our subsequent review of the literature, guided by this review, offered likely explanations for
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the effects of career plateau, and highlighted conditions under which these effects are
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strengthened or weakened, as well as noting factors that predict career plateau. Based on the
review, we encourage scholars to concentrate on investigating other forms of career plateau, to

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look into other potential mediators and moderators, and to explore other factors that might help
explain the relationships between the antecedents and career plateau.

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Table 1
Summary of Empirical Career Plateau Studies Published between 1977 and 2017
Plateau
Author(s) / Year Sample characteristics Country Measurement of plateau Investigated outcome variables/topics Other investigated variables
types
Ference et al. (1977)QL HP 55 senior executives US Not stated Job performance

Veiga (1981) HP 1,243 managers in manufacturing US Age (40 years) and position Career movement histories, career paths
Carnazza, Korman,
Ference, and Stoner
HP
companies
384 middle-level managers US
tenure (7 years)
Organisation and individual
perceptions on likelihood of
potentials, career attitudes
Factors relevant to job performance
P T
(1981)
Orpen (1983) HP 326 middle-managers Australia
future promotion
1. Job tenure (plateaued: over
7 years, non-plateaued: less
R I
Job satisfaction, intention to leave
C
than 3 years)
2. Relative occupancy time
Evans and Gilbert

(1984)
HP 70 middle-managers in a financial
organisation
UK
3. Changes in authority and
responsibility
Age (45 years) and
organisational rank
U S
Need satisfaction, future satisfaction,
Near (1985)
Slocum Jr. et al. (1985)

HP
HP
119 managers from various industries
499 salespersons from industrial

product companies
US
US N
Expects no promotion in the
next 20 years
A
No promotion or lateral job
change for over 5 years
Job performance, motivation, job characteristics
Job performance, job satisfaction, career

attitudes, company strategy, career stages
Orpen (1986) HP 326 middle-managers Australia
M
1. Job tenure (plateaued: over
7 years, non-plateaued: less
Job satisfaction, job performance, job
characteristics, growth need strength
D
than 3 years)
2. Relative occupancy time
Gerpott and Domsch
(1987)
Patterson et al. (1987)
HP
HP
618 R&D professionals
387 academic staffs
T US E
Germany Job tenure (10 years)
SUBJ
Job performance, work motivation, overall
satisfaction
Hierarchical plateau, productivity, career
satisfaction (all outcome variables)
Mediators:
Supervisory behaviour, job characteristics
Slocum Jr. et al. (1987)
Stout et al. (1988)L

HP
HP
187 sales employees in a large
E
chemical-agricultural company
P
122 salespersons in an industrial
US
US
In the same position for over
Job performance, job change
Job performance, organisational commitment,
Burke (1989) HP
C
building products firm
188 police officers
C
Canada
5 years
Industry tenure (15 years)
career intention, career issues
Job satisfaction, intention to turnover, career
orientation, burnout, individual well-being and
health, impact of job on home and family
Savery (1989)
Chao (1990)
HP
HP A
158 governmental employees
1,755 managers
Australia
US
1. SUBJ
2. Job tenure (continuous
variable)
Job satisfaction, desire for promotion/career
development
Intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction, career
planning, company identification
Moderator:
Job tenure
Milstein (1990) HP, JP 216 school faculty US SUBJ Strategies to manage career plateau, satisfaction,
absenteeism, feeling about supervisor
Savery and Wingham HP 54 female directors at child-care Australia No promotion or lateral job Job satisfaction
(1991) centres change in the past 3 years
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Plateau
types
Milliman (1992) HP, JP 443 employees in various industries US SUBJ* Satisfaction (with job, company, supervisor, pay Moderator:
and promotion), organisational commitment, Promotion aspiration, job tenure, supervisor's
turnover intentions, promotional aspiration, job discussion and planning, ability, willingness
performance, job involvement, work hours, to relocate, job content plateau, growth need
strength
Milstein and Bader HP, JP, LP 120 educators US SUBJ Plateauing at school and environmental factors
T
(1992) MX
Joseph (1992) HP, JP 514 sales marketing managers US SUBJ Stress Moderators:
I P Personal resource (self-care, social support,

physical and recreational coping), career
motivation (career insight, career resilience,
Davenport (1993) HP, JP 953 employees in healthcare industry US SUBJ*

R
Organisational commitment, turnover intentions,
C
number of work hours, educational level, job-
career identity)
Moderators:
Promotion aspiration, job tenure, age
S
induced tension
Nicholson (1993) HP 4,004 managers UK Age-grading (based on age Career and job satisfaction, desired/ expected job
Tremblay and Roger

(1993)
HP 2,183 managers Canada
and job tenure)
1. SUBJ
N
2. Job seniority (5 years) U
moves, person-job fit, pride in membership
Antecedents:
Aspiration for advancement, education, past
success, supervision role
Corzine, Buntzman, and
Busch (1994)
Zaremba (1994)
HP
HP
208 bank officers
425 managers in the national post

service
US
UK
SUBJ
Not stated
M A Hierarchical plateau, job satisfaction, salary (all

outcome variables)
Satisfaction, pride in membership and
commitment, career guidance, reward and
benefits
Antecedent:
Being mentored
Chay et al. (1995) HP 141 managerial and professional

employees
E D
Singapore SUBJ Job satisfaction, organisational commitment, job
involvement, in-role behaviours, extra-role
behaviours, career satisfaction
Moderators:
Job tenure, job challenge, supervisory
support
Tremblay et al. (1995) HP 2,183 managers
P T Canada 1. SUBJ
2. Job seniority (5 years)
Satisfaction, intention to turnover, perception of
instrumentality of the relationship between
performance and promotion
E
Ettington (1997) HP 373 middle managers US and 1. SUBJ Job satisfaction, job performance, life
Europe 2. Length of time since satisfaction
C
previous promotion
Godshalk (1997) HP, JP 330 accountants US SUBJ* Reasons for plateauing, work motivation, career Mediators:
C
and job satisfaction, turnover intention, off-job Felt stress, job involvement, off-job
satisfaction involvement
Allen et al. (1998)
Choy and Savery (1998)

HP, JP,
DP
HP
A
607 state-owned government managers
230 federal government agency

employees
US
Australia
SUBJ*

Job involvement, intent to turnover,
organisational commitment, job stress, job
satisfaction, job performance
Job satisfaction, organisational commitment
Ettington (1998) HP 373 middle managers US and 1. SUBJ job satisfaction, job performance Moderators:
Europe 2. Time in current salary Career orientation, work challenge,
grade level (time since supervisor / co-worker support, perceptions
promotion over 5 years) of plateau consequence
Lim and Teo (1998) MX HP 467 police officers Singapore SUBJ Job satisfaction, intention to quit, organisational
commitment, hierarchical plateau (all outcome
variables)
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Plateau
types
Allen et al. (1999) HP, JP 1,189 non-managerial employees from US SUBJ* Antecedents:
state government Education, social support, motivation to
learn, career exploration, career planning, job
involvement
Corzine, Buntzman, and HP 212 bank officers US SUBJ Hierarchical plateau, job satisfaction, salary (all Antecedent:
Busch (1999) outcome variables) Machiavellian behaviour
Lemire et al. (1999) HP 192 managers and professionals in the
public sector
Canada SUBJ
T
Organisational commitment, intention to
turnover, work performance, depressive state
P
Antecedents:
career stage, supervisee numbers, locus of
control, work perseverance
Rotondo (1999)
Rotondo and Perrewe

(2000)
HP
HP
120 employees from state-owned plant
224 employees from state-owned plant

US
US
SUBJ
SUBJ
R I
Coping strategies, need for achievement, job
involvement, negative affinity, age and tenure
Coping responses, job satisfaction, commitment,
perception of current performance level, career-
SC
related strain
Palmero et al. (2001) HP 155 part-time employees France 1. SUBJ Job satisfaction Moderators:
2. Position tenure Work centrality, importance of career
Crockford (2001) HP, JP,

DP
60 middle-aged male employees US
(5 or 10 years)
SUBJ*
N U
Self-esteem, demographics
progression, importance of relationship, and
other working part-time choices
Nachbagauer and Riedl

(2002)
Lee (2003)
HP, JP
HP, PP
165 university staff and 77 teachers
170 engineers
Austria
Singapore
1. SUBJ
group)
SUBJ
M A
2. Tenure (above average
Job satisfaction, organisational commitment, job
performance
Turnover intention, job satisfaction, career

satisfaction
Tremblay and Roger
(2004)S
HP 3,065 managers Canada
E D 1. SUBJ
2.Organisational tenure
(5 years)
Satisfaction, work intensity, intention to turnover Moderators:
Role ambiguity, participation in decision
making, job scope
Burke and Mikkelsen
(2006)
McCleese and Eby
HP
JP
766 police officers
1,708 employees from various

P T Norway
US
Industry tenure (15 years)
SUBJ*
Psychological health, suicidal ideation, burnout,
work and family and other work outcomes
Job satisfaction, organisational commitment Moderators:
E
(2006) industries Hierarchical plateau, role ambiguity
McCleese et al. (2007) HP, JP, 77 employees from various industries US SUBJ* Stress, depression, coping strategies
C
MX DP
Armstrong-Stassen JP Study 1: 239 HR managers Canada SUBJ* Antecedents:
(2008)S
Heilmann et al. (2008)
Jung and Tak (2008)

HP, JP
combined
HP A C
Study 2: 419 nurses
223 military members
209 white collar workers from various

US
Korea
1. SUBJ*
2. Military rank and tenure
SUBJ*
Turnover intention
Job satisfaction, organisational commitment

Self-efficacy, work-centrality, organisational
support
Mediator:
Job search behaviours
Moderators:
industries Supervisory support, career motivation
Armstrong-Stassen and HP, JP Study 1: 239 HR managers Canada SUBJ* Intention to remain Mediators:
Ursel (2009)S Study 2: 419 nurses Organisational support, career satisfaction
Lapalme et al. (2009) HP, JP 575 hospital employees Canada SUBJ affective commitment, psychological distress, Mediator:
supervisor support Organisational support
Lentz and Allen (2009) HP, JP 306 government employees US SUBJ* Job satisfaction, affective organisational Moderator:
commitment, intention to turnover Mentoring experience
Smith-Ruig (2009)QL HP, JP, LP 52 accounting professionals Australia Age (over 30 years old) Career plateau experiences
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
Plateau
types
Hurst and Eby (2010) HP, JP 77 employees from various industries US SUBJ* Career plateau appraisals Antecedents:
Educational level
Wickramasinghe and HP, JP 119 IT employees Sri Lanka HP: tenure (7 years) Supervisory support, career satisfaction
Jayaweera (2010) JP: SUBJ*
Salami (2010) HP, JP 280 government employees Nigeria SUBJ* Job satisfaction, affective organisational Moderator:
combined commitment, intention to turnover Mentoring experience
Foster et al. (2011)
Wickramasinghe and
HP, JP
combined
HP, JP
235 accountants
119 IT employees
Canada
Sri Lanka
SUBJ
HP: tenure (7 years) Career management strategies
P T
Mentoring, gender, turnover intentions Antecedent:
Mentoring
Jayaweera (2011)
Hurst et al. (2012)S HP, JP,
DP
123 employees from various industries US
JP: SUBJ*
SUBJ*
I
Organisational citizenship behaviour, coping
strategies, stress
R
SC
Miles, Gordon, and HP, JP 83 employees from television media US SUBJ* Job satisfaction
Storlie (2013) organisations
Cheng and Su (2013) HP, JP 632 military career officers Taiwan SUBJ* Institutional intention, occupational intention Mediator:
Regulatory focus
Hofstetter and Cohen
(2014)
Wang et al. (2014)
JP
HP, JP
170 employees from various industries
188 bank employees

Israel
Taiwan
SUBJ*
SUBJ*
N U Turnover intentions, early retirement
Emotional exhaustion, turnover intentions Antecedent:

Mentoring
Xie, Lu, Zhou, and Xin

(2014)S
HP, JP, IP 288 employees from various industries China SUBJ
M A Organisational commitment
Moderator (for antecedent-plateau):
proactive personality
Mediators:
Extrinsic job satisfaction, intrinsic job
D
satisfaction
Drucker-Godard et al. HP, JP 2,028 French scholars France SUBJ* Job satisfaction, organisational and occupational
(2015)
Godshalk and Fender
(2015)
Wen and Liu (2015)S
HP, JP
HP
247 accountants
147 IT employees
T
US
China
E SUBJ
SUBJ
commitment, intention to leave organisation
Job satisfaction, career satisfaction, intention to
leave, reasons for plateauing
Turnover intention
Mediators:
Work motivation, job involvement,
Moderator:
Xie et al. (2015) HP, JP
E P
288 employees from various industries China SUBJ* Turnover intentions, organisational commitment
Career anchor in challenge
Moderator:
Job content plateau
Jiang (2016) JP
C C
270 employees from various industries China SUBJ* Antecedent:
Career adaptability
Mediators (for antecedent-plateau):
Person-job fit, person-organisation fit
Xie et al. (2016)
Hurst et al. (2017)

HP
JP
A
284 employees
118 hospital employees

China
Kenya
SUBJ*
SUBJ*
Turnover intentions
Organisational citizenship behaviour

Mediator:
Job satisfaction
Moderator:
Person-job fit
Mediators:
Organisational justice, job satisfaction
Jiang et al. (2018) JP Study 1: 184 adults China SUBJ* Antecedent:
Study 2: 154 employees from various Career adaptability
industries Moderators (for antecedent-plateau):
Job tenure, job self-efficacy
Note. HP: hierarchical plateau; JP: job content plateau; DP: double plateau; PP: professional plateau; LP: life plateau; IP: inclusive plateau; SUBJ: subjective measures; * adopted Milliman’s (1992) career plateau scales;
L: longitudinal study; QL: qualitative study; MX: mix-method study; S: applied social exchange theory to understand the work outcomes of career plateau
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PLATEAU
40
Table 2
Categories and Definitions of Career Plateau
Author(s) /
Categories Definition
Year
Ference et al.  Organisational plateau Lack of promotion opportunities, although the
(1977) person is qualified for the position
 Personal plateau Lack of qualification, or lack of desire for

promotion, although opportunities are available
PT
Bardwick  Hierarchical (structural) plateau Lack of promotion opportunities in the future
(1986)
 Job content plateau Lack of challenge in job, which results from
repetitive job responsibilities
RI
 Life plateau Feeling stagnated or trapped in all aspects of life
due to a lack of fulfilment
SC
Allen et al.  Double plateau Lack of both promotion opportunities and job
(1998) challenges
NU
Lee (2003)  Professional plateau Lack of job challenges and lack of new skills
that would increase an individual’s future
employability and professional development
MA
Hurst et al.  Employment plateau Lack of opportunities for future employability

(2011)
 Occupational plateau Feeling of inability to change occupation or
profession due to personal or economic reasons
D
Xie et al.  Inclusive plateau Lack of authority and power in decision making
(2014) in an individual’s work
E
PT
CE
AC
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
Running head: A REVIEW ON CAREER PLATEAU
Table 3
Summary of Key Conclusions, Implications and Future Directions
Areas of the Key conclusions Practical implications Future research directions
review
Career plateau:  Many forms of career plateaus have  Companies can play an  Explore other forms of career
Conceptualisation been introduced but almost all studies active role in plateau, (e.g., professional plateau)
and focused on either hierarchical or job preventing career
operationalisation content plateau plateau because it is
 Career plateau is a continuous perceptual
perceptual variable
 Subjective measurement of career
plateau is a more rigorous approach
than objective measurement
Work outcomes  Reaching a hierarchical or job content  Organisations should  Studies using objective measures
PT
of career plateau plateau lowers employee job take effective steps to of performance are needed to
satisfaction and organisational manage plateaued provide more insight into the
commitment, and increases turnover employees as a lack of effects of job content plateau
intentions promotion and job  Extra-role performance of
RI
 Hierarchical plateau is linked with challenge lead to plateaued employees should be
poorer well-being but there is little poorer job attitudes examined
support that job content plateau affects  Hierarchical plateau is
well-being a stressful experience
SC
 The influence of hierarchical plateau and companies should
on job performance is mixed although adopt effective
studies that used subjective interventions to reduce
measurement of plateau and objective stress
measurement of performance all report
NU
a negative relationship
 Some support that job content plateau
negatively affects self-assessed
performance but its impact on
objective performance is unclear
MA
Mediators of the  Mediators include perceptions of  The negative impact of  Explore a loss of obligation
effects of career organisational and supervisory support career plateau can be towards the organisation as an
plateau and job satisfaction reduced by providing additional potential mechanism
constructive feedback  Test the serial mechanism process
and support to wherein perceptions of support in
employees, and by turn lead to loss of obligation to
D
making efforts to predict longer-term work outcomes

maintain employee
E
satisfaction
Moderators of the  Moderators include desire for  Organisations can  More exhaustive models (e.g.,
effects of career promotion, organisational strategies alleviate the negative moderated mediation models) are
PT
plateau (e.g., offering job challenge), and outcomes of career needed to understand why the
individual approaches to counteract plateau through job effects of plateau vary according to
career plateau (e.g., coping strategies) rotation and adopting these moderators
mentor schemes  Additional moderators, such as
CE
 Organisations can also desire for job challenge, should be

encourage the use of investigated
adaptive coping  Conduct longitudinal studies to
strategies among understand the order of which
employees organisational and individual
AC
approaches for counteracting

career plateau affect the process
Antecedents of  Proactive tendencies and behaviours  The perception of  Explore factors that mediate or
career plateau and the organisation giving additional career plateau may be moderate the antecedent-plateau
responsibilities are negatively related reduced through giving relationship
to both hierarchical and job content additional
plateau responsibilities
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
 Worker’s
motivation
towards promotion
or challenge
 Organisational Individual
approaches to approaches to
counteract career counteract career
plateau plateau
 Proactive
tendencies
PT
and Perceived lack of
 Job satisfaction (-)
behaviours (-) Career plateau support from the
 Well-being (-)
 Additional organisation
responsibilitie
RI
s (-)  Organisational
commitment (-)
Perceived loss of
SC
 Turnover
obligation towards
organisation intentions (+)
 Job performance
(-)
NU
Figure 1. A theoretical framework for examining career plateau
MA
E D
PT
CE
AC
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
Highlights
 The first review on career plateau (CP), including 72 empirical studies
 Hierarchical and job content plateau are the most studied types of CP
PT
 CP individuals have poor work outcomes due to lack of support and low satisfaction
RI
 Desires toward promotion and approaches to counteract plateau are moderators of CP
SC
 Proactivity and additional responsibilities are negatively related with CP
NU
MA
E D
PT
CE
AC

Career Plateau A Review

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Career plateau: A review of 40 years of research

Wei-Ning Yang, Karen Niven, Sheena Johnson

CAREER PLATEAU: A REVIEW OF 40 YEARS OF RESEARCH

King’s Business School

Alliance Manchester Business School

Booth Street East, Manchester, M13 9SS

Alliance Manchester Business School

Booth Street East, Manchester, M13 9SS

being promoted. In terms of antecedents of plateau, proactivity and additional responsibilities

review offers managerial implications and suggestions of future research directions.

Keywords: Career plateau, hierarchical plateau, job content plateau, review

conducted on the databases PsychINFO, ABI/INFORM and Global ProQuest, using a

International Journal of Human Resource Management, and Journal of Career Development).

suggestions for managers.

Conceptualisation of career plateau

of opportunities to develop professional and employability skills in one’s job.

career plateau studies, as indicated in Table 1.

to conceive these variables as covariates of career plateau, especially those of hierarchical

focus our discussions specifically on these two most-studied types of plateau.

affective, including feelings of frustration or dissatisfaction, whereas a lack of reciprocation

over time will lead to more behavioural outcomes.

demonstrate outcomes such as lower organisational commitment, higher turnover intentions

and poorer job performance.

among other possible consequences.

impact of plateau on their attitudes and behaviours.

The second moderator is organisational approaches to counteract career plateau. This

organisations, may be in a position to enact approaches to counteract plateau. From a social

expect to be rewarded with promotions or to receive challenging assignments throughout their

organisational support and work outcomes.

reach a plateaued status.

2006; Bozionelos, 2004).

This theoretical framework is illustrated in Figure 1. In the following sub-sections,

and its antecedents.

Effects of career plateau on affective outcomes

reported no differences in satisfaction between plateaued and non-plateaued workers (e.g.,

into plateaued or non-plateaued groups, owing to the objective operationalisation of career

Nachbagauer & Riedl, 2002; Salami, 2010).

Well-being. Empirical research has generally supported a link between hierarchical

content plateau on stress.

Effects of career plateau on other work outcomes

commitment over the study period.

relationship between subjective hierarchical plateau and organisational commitment among

negative effects of either hierarchical or job content plateau on employees’ organisational

employees’ dedication to their companies.

content plateau) was positively related to turnover intentions.

to their non-plateaued counterparts. Gerpott and Domsch (1987) examined performance of

R&D professionals, comparing hierarchically plateaued versus non-plateaued workers.

subjectively-measured hierarchical plateau was negatively associated with manager’s

performance ratings. Similarly, Orpen (1986) found no between-group differences in self-

rated job performance than non-plateaued managers.

of job content plateau on job performance.

To summarise, while early research adopting objective measures of hierarchical plateau

produced some inconsistent findings, these inconsistencies could potentially be attributed to

Perceived lack of support from the organisation. As explained in our theoretical

perceived organisational support mediated effects on commitment to the organisation and

and greater turnover intentions.

Perceived loss of obligation towards organisation. The second pathway proposed in

our theoretical framework is plateaued individuals’ perceived loss of obligation towards

employee satisfaction as an additional pathway to explain long-term work outcomes.

Moderators of the effects of career plateau

effects of hierarchical plateau on outcomes such as organisational commitment, turnover

Organisational approaches to counteract career plateau. We theorised that if